These are the two strongest
emotions a person can feel, hatred and love. You may be tempted to say that
anger tops hatred, but wouldn’t anger stem from hatred?
If something abhors you then my
guess is it will trigger anger inside of you.
And if that something is something that Jesus abhors, then that anger is
a righteous anger and can be used for good.
Romans 12:11 says to use these
two emotions and use them well. Inside
each of us is the ability to hate and love.
Hate is such a strong word that, at times, I am tempted to say that I
shouldn’t hate anything. But God has
given me and you this feeling, this emotion of hatred for a reason. Hatred gives me that umph to push away from
the world, from evil, and to cling to Jesus.
Without hatred I would never be able to separate myself from a world
that is constantly telling me it has something better to offer me than Jesus
does. Without hatred, I would never be
able to grab a hold on to Jesus because my loyalties would be split between
this world and Jesus. Hatred gives me
the needed force to remove myself from evil, resist the devil, and draw near to
God.
We have taken these two raw
emotions and have watered them down by applying them to words like broccoli, “I
hate broccoli” or “I love broccoli”. (Although, the first example is more real
in my world). We lose the spiritual
value of these emotions when we apply them to things that have no eternal
value.
God says, abhor what is
evil. Abhor is not just a mere dislike,
rather it means to resent, despise, have nothing to do with evil. On the other hand, God says hold fast to what
is good. This means much more than
liking what is good, rather it means to associate, hire, be a part of, what is
good.
James 1:17 says every good gift
and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…
Anything that is good, anything
that we are to hold fast to comes from the Father and has culminated in the Son. Sometimes, in a word filled with lies, it is
hard to know what to hold fast to, what is good, but one thing is for sure, if
you hold fast to Jesus, then you are holding fast to good. If you resist the evil one and draw near to
Jesus, then Jesus will draw near to you.
Let me close 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22,
“but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.”
